


In this world and the next

by moments_of_infinity



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Hermione Granger, Alternate Universe, Angst, Depression, Drama, Eating Disorders, F/M, Future Fic, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Mental Health Issues, Not Canon Compliant, One Night Stands, References to Depression, Romance, Sad, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Snape survives, Triggers, a little ooc whoops, i overuse italics again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25949923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moments_of_infinity/pseuds/moments_of_infinity
Summary: In a lone act of self-preservation, Hermione Granger leaves.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	In this world and the next

**01**

Fact: Hermione has always been able to know she's about to crack before it even happens, hence her survivability. So after she (truly not Harry, _her)_ saves the Wizarding World from the Dark Lord, she decides it’s over. Not her life—at least, not yet—but certainly everything else.

It’s genius, really, because she's Hermione. She offers to help reconstruct and resort the library after the Hogwarts battle. Madam Pince is grateful for the help, and Hermione, as polite and sweet as always, finds it easy to simply open each book and graze her eyes across the listed contents of each one. Carefully. Calculating. By the end of the process, she has 30 different potions and spells written down on the piece of parchment she keeps tucked away in the pocket of her robes.

**02**

She rents a small flat on the East End. One bedroom, one bathroom, a galley kitchen, and a living room just big enough to fit a sofa, two chairs, a table, and a television. She hangs up some family pictures, displays all of her favorite muggle books on a makeshift shelf in her room, and replaces the tacky shutters on the windows with clean white curtains.

Her second-to-last spell is, naturally, a cleaning spell. She uses it to touch up the dirt and dust still remaining in the flat. Then she goes to the bathroom. She strips naked, her wand grasped tightly in one hand and the piece of parchment in the other.

 _“Ultra magicae,”_ she says, her strong, clear voice echoing against the narrow walls that surround her. Her wand lands on the ground with a pitiful _thud_. Her vision blurs and she sits down on the edge of the toilet, her head lolling to one side. And, quietly, she falls asleep.

**03**

When she wakes up plastered to the floor of the bathroom, the first thing she does is reach for her wand. She immediately tries a spell, and absolutely nothing happens. Only a faint wisp of gray smoke rises from the tip of the piece of wood between her fingers.

Fact: this is the first time Hermione Granger has ever failed at a spell, and the last.

Fact: she’s not exactly _happy_ about it. If anything, it’s quite the opposite. Of _course_ the first spell on the parchment was the one that worked. Of _course_ she was successful with the first attempt of the first spell. Of _course_ it's her exceptional capabilities that caused her lonesome, solemn demise. 

The thing about Hermione is she has always been rather good at saving other people’s asses. And it’s one thing in the muggle world, where saving requires real science and real bravery—it’s another thing in the Wizarding World, where, despite all of her best efforts, nothing ever really made any sense, her plans never really worked, everyone was a whole lot more stupid, and everything always ended up falling upon her knowing, yes, and capable, yes, but still rather fragile shoulders.

So she decided that would be the end of that. No more goose chases. No more saving others. For once, Hermione Granger is going to save only herself.

**04**

And it doesn’t even work.

Ten years later and she’s an accountant for a firm in Gloucester, a somewhat shitty town on the outskirts of anything that could possibly be fun or interesting. She makes plenty of money but lives in a modest two-bedroom. She goes to work early and comes home late, sometimes with the man she’s been seeing, sometimes alone. Mostly alone.

The man is handsome. And by handsome she means really fucking good looking. He’s tall, lanky, bearded, dresses well, and gives fantastic head. His name is Eric, and he’s very talented at helping her forget.

In fact, Hermione has forgotten almost everything. Over the years she’s gotten rid of every single thing that reminds her of her past, every cloak, every copy of _Hogwarts, A History,_ every moving, magical cutout from the Prophet. Perhaps it was the spell, or perhaps it was her own uncanny ability to adapt to any and every situation, but Hermione can’t even remember the name of the school she attended, doesn’t even really realize that she was a witch, that she was _magic._

When people, or, more specifically, Eric, ask about her past, she tells them exclusively about primary school, then uni. After all, she attended the University of Bristol (one of the best in the country, _obviously_ ) and had a fantastic time. Nobody’s ever bothered to fill in the blanks. And that’s okay with her.

**05**

Fact: on top of everything else, Hermione Granger is also astonishingly good at not eating.

It’s a trick she’s picked up recently. Maybe when she still had some memory of Hogwarts she had enough of something inside of her to warrant nourishment. Now, though, there’s nothing. Just a whole lot of fogginess and an emptiness that encompasses, truly, every aspect of her life.

It’s not like she’s crazy about Eric, and it’s certainly not like she has a lot of friends, or a job she loves, or a flat that’s anything to brag about, or even a past she can remember. So when she stops eating, when she stops forcing food down her own unwilling throat, absolutely nothing in her life changes. And it becomes an entirely new compulsion. Something else to think about that that adds up to zero. Another habit to help her fade away. At least now she likes what she sees in the mirror. At least now she doesn’t even have to worry about saving herself.

**06**

She’s listening to some program on the BBC when there’s a knock at her door. She opens it without hesitation. She can't remember the last time she bothered checking the peephole. Who would want to kidnap her, _kill_ her? She who drowns in her own inability to be seen?

On the other side of the door is a man in perhaps his late fifties. He’s wearing a pair of black pants and black boots and a white button down with a jacket over it. Something about it feels unnatural, like he hasn’t worn anything like it in a long time.

“Can I help you?” Hermione asks.

“Yes,” the man says. No, _drawls,_ Hermione thinks to herself. That’s really the only way to describe it.

“Erm,” she replies. He removes one of his hands from his pockets and gestures to her living room as if beckoning himself in. Hermione raises her eyebrows.

“I think it will be of your best interest to allow me to enter,” he answers coolly. And for a moment, Hermione remembers something. A faint feeling of nostalgia that's neither favorable nor critical. She opens the door a bit wider and he steps inside.

“You can sit,” she offers, pointing to the sofa. He follows her command as she, too, sits down in a chair beside him. Close enough to hear and see, yet still far enough away to maintain the necessary distance.

“Miss Granger,” he states.

“That’s me,” she says.

“Do you remember who I am?” He snarls, audibly already insulted by that fact that clearly does not. She takes a moment to stare at him, take him in, and supposes that it would be impossible for a man to look less interested in the current discussion. 

“No,” she answers. The man sighs and presses his index finger to his temple.

“Minerva warned me that there was a chance it would be this way.... you know, believe it or not, I'm a busy man, and having to come solicit some idiotic Gryffindor--”

 _Minerva. Gryffindor._ At the sound of those words, that _thing_ deep inside of her stirs again. She wraps her hands around her waist as if to protect herself from the knowledge she isn’t sure she wants to know. The man seems to notice this and turns to look at her fully, his eyes meeting hers.

“Minerva McGonagall,” he repeats, his mouth wrapping around each syllable. Hermione closes her eyes. _A hat, a cloak. A stone staircase. Wood in her hands—_

“What’s the meaning of this?” She asks. He pauses. 

“You’re needed,” the man finally replies. And the emptiness that's entirely handmade and that _thing_ twirl together within her. In another world, perhaps, her stomach would growl, or she would know what to say. But she's in _this_ world, and neither happens. Like a pair of stone statues, they are still. And silent.

**07**

Fact: Hermione Granger usually doesn’t have a hard time getting to sleep, but tonight she finds herself staring up at her ceiling, the fan whirring quietly above her.

In the room next to her, the man sleeps. She still doesn’t know his name. She never asked for it. She isn't sure she wants to know. But she trusts him, she thinks, or maybe she just assumes her own invisibility to run a river deep enough to protect her from danger.

The man sleeps. Hermione Granger does not.

**08**

Eventually she does, at least for an hour or two. But at five o’clock in the morning, her eyes open.

“Snape,” she whispers. His name. She remembers. _She remembers._

Something about how she’s the savior, and he is, too, although good _lord_ he was mean, and when she awakens completely her shoulders are already aching once again with the weight of a world she knows now just how hard she tried to carry. And leave behind.

Without hesitation, she exits her room and pads down the hallway. She knocks lightly on the man’s door, _Snape’s_ door, and although he doesn’t answer she opens it anyway.

She stands in the doorway for a moment, watching him sleep. He appears to be one with the darkness that surrounds him. Like her, invisible.

“Professor?” She whispers. So quietly that she can barely hear her own voice hang in the air. But he does. He opens his eyes and sits up immediately.

“What in Merlin—”

“I remember,” she breathes. He sits there for a moment, stunned, then rolls out of bed and stands up. He’s still in his clothes.

“What—”

“The war. I remember it. And I remember you, and Harry, and Ron—”

"Isn't this quite the development, Miss Granger," he mutters, then blinks a few times. In the dead of night, his somber eyes glow with what Hermione can only assume is pity. (Later, she will figure out that it was shame. For himself. For knowing right then that despite his mastery of many magical arts, there was not a single strand of words he could ever weave together that would convince her to do anything other than what she had already decided.)

“Yes,” she says.

**09**

She goes to work the next morning. She's able to stay focused on the numbers and computations; after all, when the need arises, and it often does, Hermione is particularly gifted in compartmentalizing. Even when Eric finds her at the end of the day, all of the necessary compartments stay closed.

“Good day, Hermie?” He asks.

“Not particularly. And you?” It’s a necessary courtesy.

“Ah, well, it just got better,” he tells her. She smiles at him and he places a kiss on the tip of her nose.

“Listen, Eric, I’d love to have you over tonight, but I’m just not feeling all that well,” she says. He sighs and switches his briefcase from his left arm to his right arm.

“Tomorrow, then," he insists. It's meant to sound like a joke, or something like a joke, but Hermione knows that although she can resist many things, Eric's solitary, discreet desires, his lightest, kindest pushes, always result in the same failure.

“Tomorrow.”

**10**

Fact: Hermione has never been good at small talk. When she gets home from work that day, he's sitting on her sofa and sipping a cup of tea. She slips her shoes off her feet before sitting down on the chair next to him.

“Well?” He inquires. His tone, she supposes, is neither rude nor kind, interested nor disinterested. 

“I’m not going back,” she replies resolutely. 

“There are ways, Miss Granger, if you would so wish—”

“I’m not going back.”

It’s not like she’s happy here, or even like she’s anywhere close to it. She’s not saying she is. She’s saying she’d rather be starving to death in the comfort of her bare-bones flat or in the arms of her distant, handsome lover than live ever again at the mercy of a world that expects her to save it.

“Miss Granger, if you remember anything about me, then you will know I do not play games and I do not tolerate insolence. You are a _witch._ Your capabilities—they are _needed._ Weren’t you doing wandless magic in sixth year? You will come back. With me.”

It’s a statement. And, Hermione supposes, a curse all of its own.

**11**

They eat supper in silence. He finishes his eggs and toast in minutes. Hermione picks around at the spinach and balsamic on her plate for a little while longer. His eyes follows every movement she makes in a way that, albeit disconcerting, reminds her, if for just a moment, the feeling of seeing and being seen-- for what she is, and was. 

"Let's go on a walk," she eventually suggests.

“A walk?” He snaps.

“Yes, a walk,” she tries.

So she tosses out her uneaten food and they grab their coats and head outside, where it is cold and very, very dark. The ground is still wet from the afternoon rain. They maintain their stiff, resolute distance as they circle the block.

“After all this time, why on earth am I needed back there _now_?” Hermione questions. He glances over at her, his gaze not quite unfeeling.

"Minerva-- she's headmistress now, you know. I'm not aware of any specifics. But.... a mind like yours would be an asset to Hogwarts, no matter the circumstance," he replies. Hermione's empty stomach churns. Here, in this world, she researches whenever the interest strikes. She reads the books she wants to read. She doesn't eat when she doesn't want to eat. It's been years since she's had to answer to, or account for, anyone. Here, she can starve herself into oblivion. She can die and be forgotten, her tiny, skinny skeleton left, utterly and completely, in history. And that in and of itself is more of a taste of freedom than she ever had when waving around a wand.

Even in the murk of the night, something about him, about the way his gait slows down as if he's lost a fraction of his urgency, finds its way into her open arms. His silence stretches like a smoke-screen across the sky. Billows around her in knots of understanding.

**12**

Hermione doesn’t know what makes her do it.

That night, she finds herself back in his bedroom. Again, she watches him sleep for a moment, her eyes trailing to the exact spots where his shirt meets the almost identical darkness that surrounds him. Tentatively, she perches herself on the edge of his bed. His eyes flash open and they sit there like that, perhaps both wondering what on earth the other is supposed to say.

“Miss Granger,” he eventually breathes, his voice curdled with sleep. Yet the warmth of it slips its way down her spine like water, or honey, or some sweet jam ripe with sugar.

"I just...can't," she insists a few seconds later. She swears she sees him nod in support. Or maybe resignation. (Later, she will still not be sure which it was she saw on that hushed, esoteric night.)

Then, ever-so-quietly: “I know.”

The emptiness, now a sensation closer to bliss than misery, burns brightly within her right then, so brightly that she reaches out and lets her index finger trace a line from one of his knuckles to the knob of his wrist. He is cold and leathery to the touch. Between them a string of recognition is pulled taut.

“What do you think you’re doing, Miss Granger?” He asks, although he makes no motion to pull away. Fact: she has no idea what she’s doing. Or what she's getting herself into. But that's okay. He sits up, and as softly as he can possibly muster, presses his lips to the space between her jaw and ear. Watches as her skin bubbles under the heat of his breath.

**13**

The kissing is gentle, so gentle it feels almost unreal, and knowing, yes, knowing. 

And her body. Her body beneath him. Oh, her body, how small it is, and compressible, and open, and beautiful in a way that isn't beautiful at all. If he could use a word to describe it, he might use _protruding_. (Years from now, he will remember more specifically than anything else how her bones strained and convulsed against the quiet grief that was all of the rest of her, and the feather-light kisses he gave the spots that he was sure were the most tender; the rounded, almost-purple tips of her fingers, her hipbones, the nape of her neck.)

When they have sex, it’s not quite like making love. Hermione now remembers that she's only _made love_ before with Ron. And each time it was like coming home. It was like an arrival. It was like being found. And this isn’t that. Or maybe it is. Or maybe it runs parallel. She isn't sure.

In that sense alone, it's both a giving and a taking, a borrow and a return.

**14**

“Do they remember me?” She asks. He immediately knows who it is of which she speaks: Harry and Ron.

Fact: they don’t. Well, of course they do, but not in any way that’s tangible. Their anger had steeped and eventually disappeared into confusion, then a lack of caring at all. He supposes neither thinks about her at all these days.

Does he? Does he remember her? Even with a gun to his head, he's not sure he could say what she looked like when she was younger, how her voice sounded, whether or not she really was an insufferable knowitall. Though he figures that it doesn't matter. The woman lying next to him isn't the same Hermione Granger anyways.

“Of course,” he states, but she knows it's not true: Hermione, despite what some might have to say about the choices she's made, is no fool. Perhaps it's the very fact that he lied so willingly to protect her that sends her hand to wander across the expanse of his chest. He takes it into his own. Gently encloses it inside of his palm.

**15**

“I am still struggling to understand why you did this to yourself,” he says quietly. Hermione looks down at herself in the dark, her legs white and narrow in the moonlight, his large arm wrapped around her, her carefully-curated disasters finally intertwining. 

“I was going to crack. And I couldn’t do that. Not when everyone was relying on me to save the day. I was tired of it, of the pressure, and of worrying that one day I just wouldn’t be able to do it anymore. So I left,” she whispers. He nods in the darkness. (Yes, yes, this time almost certainly in resignation.) Then, tenderly, his hand grazes across her collarbone, as if to ask— _and this?_

“Now there’s no pressure. So I try to disappear in any way I see fit,” she replies. The silence that follows seeps into the spaces between nail and nailbed, erodes both away.

**16**

“There are things I wish I could tell them,” she says. The first signs of morning leak in through the curtains.

“Then come back,” he requests. A prayer he knows will go unanswered. 

“We both know I can’t do that,” Hermione tells him.

He turns to his side and presses her back against him. A desire for the night, and for familiar sleep. She traces the pattern of the vein under the almost-translucent skin of his wrist before finally settling her hand back in his. He squeezes slightly as if to let her know he’s here, and, yes, saying goodbye.

**17**

When Hermione wakes up, she’s alone. All signs of him gone. She checks the bedstand, then the den, then the counter spaces for notes, or something to tell her that he was _here,_ but there are none. For a moment she supposes she’d dreamt it all, although she's far too clever to ensnare herself with such delusions. The now-known pit in her stomach of everything she once was and the comfortable emptiness tangle together, again, a surreal, uncomfortable feeling she’s sure would be better left forgotten.

She retreats to her room and calls in sick to work.

**18**

Years later, when she and Eric are in bed, he’ll ask her. About her body, and old lovers she had, and what happened to her between the ages of 11 and 17, and she’s forgotten most of it except for how right and real and _correct_ water feels when it travels down to the empty well that is the rest of her, and a strange man who’d come and gone, entered and exited, like a cold breeze, or a ghost moving through her hollowness. And Eric says: _I really do wish I could know you._ And Hermione says: _I wish I could, too._ Then, in an action that could be seen as either a delivery or a wake, she falls asleep quickly. So quickly one might consider it a departure.

Fact: she is already lost in a dream of disappearing into and out of herself, and, fact, the disapparation has never felt so good.


End file.
